Customer Reviews

Pervasive Computing: Technology and Architecture of Mobile Internet Applications

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This is a very euro-centric books (where ... is assumed to be considered a success and ... will be here anyday). Despite this perhaps flawed view point, the book is interesting to read
and the example in the second half of the book showing how to write a concrete application in Java on a server to deliver content to a PDA, a WAP phone, a PC web browser, and to a voice device is very well done.

There are some things which are not clear - for example, why would someone give their PIN to an applet (12.1.2 pg. 316) which could then sign anything via the smart card! Another questions is
why is WAP so useful, if you have to test you application with each specific device and code around its behavior (13.2.1 pg. 338).

Although the back cover talks about "ubiquitous embedded computer systems, consumer electronics" other than pictures of IBM's web watch and some digital jewerly all of the devices seem to be assuumed to have considerable computing power (at least a complete Java environment). Perhaps this book is best read in conjunction with "The TINI Specification and Developer's Guide" by Don Loomis, which looks at things from the small device rather than the server point of view.